


No-one's Told the Truth

by wasp



Category: Little Mix (Band)
Genre: F/F, college au i guess???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:32:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasp/pseuds/wasp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade doesn't know if she's in love with Leigh-Anne. It feels like such a grown-up word in her mouth and she feels anything but when she's in her presence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No-one's Told the Truth

"Nice shoes," Perrie says, cutting Jade off mid-sentence to laugh at Leigh-Anne. She closes the door of her locker with a bang, leaning against it and peering around Jade to get a better look.

Leigh-Anne never seems to have a problem with the crowd, everyone just seems to make way for her with minimal effort on her part. Jade turns around in time to see Leigh-Anne roll her eyes so hard they might just give up all together and pop out. Leigh-Anne flips Perrie off and just continues to shuffle over in these stained, rank canvas shoes that cannot actually belong to her. She makes a face, ducking her chin a little bit as if she wants to die rather than walk around in them and Jade has to hide a small smile behind her folder. She's usually immaculately dressed, looks like she's wearing a completely different every day which is just _ridiculous._ But Leigh-Anne is ridiculous most of the time and Jade's known her since they were babies, she can't remember Leigh-Anne ever passing up a chance to look good.

"My heel broke off again," Leigh-Anne says through gritted teeth when she reaches them.

Perrie wrinkles her nose down at them because they _smell_. Like somebody who didn't wear socks on a regular basis just left their shoes somewhere one day and they ended up in the lost and found box. Jade vaguely remembers Louis walking around barefoot a couple of weeks ago and jumping on people, trying to get them to piggy back him to his classes.

"You need to stop wearing heels to college," Jesy says, scaring the shit out of Jade.

Jesy laughs at Jade and reaches over her shoulder to flick one of Leigh-Anne's oversized earrings with her index finger. Leigh-Anne makes a face and flips her off too.

As soon as the bell rings, Perrie and Jesy both race down the hallway, grabbing at each other's hands. Jade stares after them in disbelief because she knows they've got History and, yeah, the sub is _pretty_ cute but Jesy just pushed a boy out of the way with her elbow and he's on the ground now, blinking in confusion. Jade considers apologising on Jesy's behalf but Leigh-Anne grabs her arm and pulls her closer.

"Swap with me," Leigh-Anne demands.

"What?" Jade says, thinking she didn't hear right with all the hustle and bustle of students going off to class. She looks down at her sensible creepers and back up at Leigh-Anne.

"C'mon, these smell weird," Leigh-Anne whines, readjusting the strap of her fancy bag. It's a big bag and she usually pulls out a variety of things that has saved all of their arses a whole bunch of times but Jade's not sure she carries any books with her.

"Why would I want to wear them then?" Jade asks, bewildered.

"Pleaaaaaase, I'm going out with Boyd at lunch and I don't want to smell like these shoes," Leigh-Anne says, tugging on the front of Jade's shirt and pulling a tragic face. "Jade, I _said_ please!"

Jade tries to keep the long-suffering sigh for longer a little bit longer, stalling. "Alright alright, keep your pants on," Jade mumbles under her breath, toeing her shoes off.

Leigh-Anne wriggles her feet out of the trainers immediately and shoves them at Jade's feet. She slips into Jade's shoes and smiles widely at her, leaning forward to give her a quick hug and a kiss to her cheek.

"Thanks, babe. I'll see you later, yeah? Come over after," Leigh-Anne says, starting to walk off. She turns around to wave at Jade for a moment and disappears off to her class. Or maybe not, Jade has trouble keeping up with what Leigh-Anne might be doing when they're not actually in class together.

Jade closes her eyes and makes a sound of despair when she's sure she's gone. She slumps against Perrie's locker, her forehead hitting the metal and she hears something fall inside. It's probably something from her shrine to their History teacher. Jade makes a face at herself, feeling pathetic and smelly and touches her fingertips to the sticky leftover lip gloss on her cheeks. She can't help thinking that's _exactly_ how she feels about Leigh-Anne. Sticky and smudgy left-overs. Jade looks down at her phone and starts running to her class in the trainers because somewhere along the lines of comparing herself to Leigh-Anne's lipgloss, she's become _late_.

~

Jade doesn't know if she's in love with Leigh-Anne. It feels like such a grown-up word in her mouth and she feels anything but when she's in her presence.

It's just - Jade's known her all her life, they've been best friends since they were five. They've started college now and everything's changed so much since but Leigh-Anne doesn't seem to be sick of her yet. Leigh-Anne was always the girl everyone wanted to be friends with, she was pretty, she spoke her mind and she wasn't afraid to get back at people if they fucked with her. Jade is always afraid things will _escalate_ and it stresses her out to think of going back and forth until somebody crosses the line, scared of the payback being much worse. Leigh-Anne doesn't seem to have the same worries.

Leigh-Anne was the most popular girl for as long Jade could remember but she still didn't care that for a long time Jade only wore overalls, up until Year 8 in fact, and the fact she didn't really know what to do with the solid mass of her hair until much later on. That she was quiet around new people and didn't know how to be fun and crazy off the bat like Leigh-Anne did. But they balance each other out and Leigh-Anne brings her out of her shell and Jade keeps Leigh-Anne from doing anything too outrageous as well as she can. They've stuck together for so long now.

And, well, they've always had each other's back. They love each other - they're both the only child in their respective families, it's almost like they are sisters now. Leigh-Anne stuck up for her when girls used to push her around in the hallways and Jade still carries a sharpie with her everywhere so she can scribble out the mean things written about Leigh-Anne in the girls' bathrooms. Leigh-Anne wipes at Jade's eyes and carefully applies lipstick to her lips and tells her it's only meant to make _her_ feel better, that she's fine just the way she is and Derek is a fucking dickhole who can eat a whole bag of arse for all she cares. Jade's there for every single one of Leigh-Anne's break ups, including Derek, and sleeps over and brings her favourite ( _expensive_ ) brand of chocolate and stays for as long as she can. Jade sees her when she's at her most vulnerable, no make-up, sleep-mussed hair, curled up small in her massive bed with her head in Jade's lap. She's always there to pick up the pieces and is perfectly content to watch Pretty Little Liars with her until she falls asleep.

But lately, it feels like Jade's always there for Leigh-Anne when she needs her but Leigh-Anne's rarely there at all. She's used to being blown off, Leigh-Anne forgets a lot of things and they're mostly doing the same old things with each other when they hang out anyway, for brighter shinier things like _boys_. She's used to it and it makes her feel pathetic, even without Perrie looking at her with wide pitying eyes and Jesy getting mad at Leigh-Anne for what appears to be no reason which Jade _hates_ because as much as they love each other they fight enough as it is. She's used to it but lately it's been more consistent, there's something about Leigh-Anne that's different. They'd be perfectly normal, just the two of them and they'd be laughing and getting along fine and then Leigh-Anne would slam a wall up for the rest of the evening.

Jade thinks if she's in love with Leigh-Anne, she must have been for quite a while now because she doesn't know how it works, exactly, but she can't seem to pinpoint a specific moment or time when she thought _oh_ and felt it, new and sudden. It must have always just been there, changing and morphing from one thing to another, steady every year, because now Jade sometimes stares at the way Leigh-Anne applies her lip gloss and want to kiss it all off her. Or sometimes they'd fall asleep at one of their sleepovers and Leigh-Anne would grab her out of everyone else and snuggle close, her breasts pressed up against Jade's back, her hand resting on her stomach and Jade would barely get any sleep thinking of how much she wanted that hand to move lower. She wants to hold that same hand all the way down the hallway and walk her to class and kiss her goodbye, like she does with her boyfriend of the week, and it makes her heard slam painfully against her ribcage.

She feels guilty about it, first and foremost, because Leigh-Anne's her best friend and she shouldn't be thinking about things like that. But when it's late at night and Jade can't sleep and the quick fix for that is to push her hand into her knickers, she can't help it and she tries to forget it happened as soon as she falls asleep in her own bed.

~

"I've got such fat cheeks," Leigh-Anne says, grimacing at her reflection in the mirror. "Where are my cheekbones?"

"Oh, stop it," Jade says and makes a face at her when Leigh-Anne finally turns around from the mirror, her jaw sliding open like she's going to put up a protest.

"They're like marshmallows," Leigh-Anne only says.

Jade reaches forward from the bed, grabbing her cheeks and squishing them together to get a laugh at out of her. She shrugs out of her grip almost immediately though, taking another step backwards. Jade just lies back down on her belly, flipping a page of the textbook spread out at the foot of the bed like she didn't notice a thing.

"They're fine. Now c'mon - we're supposed to be getting some work done," Jade says, tapping her notebook with the end of her pen.

Leigh-Anne ignores her and goes back to the mirror. They already watched two episodes of Gossip Girl because Leigh-Anne insisted and then begged and then rolled on top of Jade and wouldn't get off until she complied. Like it wasn't her room and she could do whatever the hell she liked and Jade would probably join her. But the thing is, they would've finished their work by now if Leigh-Anne had just concentrated for half an hour and they could spend the rest of the evening watching tv and eating junk food. Leigh-Anne could do half of this in her sleep if she put in some effort but whenever Jade mentions it, Leigh-Anne groans and tells her to stop _lecturing_ her, that she sounds just like her teachers, so she stops.

"Alright, Jesus, you eager beaver," Leigh-Anne says, climbing back onto the bed. Her denim skater skirt spreads out around her when she takes a seat, crossing her legs. She reaches across Jade for the remote and turns down the volume of the tv and Jade tells herself to get a fucking grip because she smells Leigh-Anne's perfume all the time and it's not going to become a _thing_.

"Okay, so in this example if it-" Jade pauses mid-sentence, staring at Leigh-Anne because she's chewing on the end of her pen and looking faraway into the distance as if she's _already_ distracted. They've only just started the work, she can't honestly have that short of an attention span.

"Want to watch some porn?" Leigh-Anne asks, ignoring the rest of her sentence easily. She turns her head to look at Jade, raising an eyebrow with a sly smile.

"Leigh-Anne!" Jade says because she always does this, always says stuff to make her _blush_ because she thinks it's hilarious to take the piss out of her. "No! We're supposed to be doing _this_."

"I'm just kidding," Leigh-Anne says, starting to laugh. She reaches forward to pinch her cheek, almost falling face-first into the textbook when her other elbow slips out from under her. She lifts herself back up, reading the very first question they still haven't got past. It doesn't last very long. "Boyd wanted me to watch this girl on girl porno with him last week and it was like - have you ever kissed a girl before?"

Jade stares at her, feeling her heart drop, her palms turning clammy.

"Wait, who am I kidding. You've never even kissed a _boy_ ," Leigh-Anne says with a scoff, shaking her head as if to say _never mind_. She turns back to the textbook and goes back to reading the question.

Jade lets out the breath she didn't know she had been holding, feeling oddly light-headed and trying to keep up with the train of thoughts. It's more like a train wreck at this point but she can't help the defensive tilt leeching into her voice when she says, "I've kissed people."

"Yeah, uh-huh, like who?" Leigh-Anne says dubiously, tapping her pen against her book as if she's bored.

 _Eleanor. Tamara. Jessica._ "Li-"

"Liam doesn't count. You guys were like seven," Leigh-Anne says, rolling her eyes. "And he's like gay now, or bi, whatever - he's fucking Louis. So maybe that shouldn't be your crowning moment of glory."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jade says, frowning. "I didn't _make_ him gay, it doesn't work like that!"

"Oh, now you're an expert?" Leigh-Anne asks, raising her eyebrows at Jade. She's still smiling, amused, and Jade looks away.

"Don't be such a bitch," Jade says, pressing her pen harder into her notebook.

"God, I'm sorry, calm down," Leigh-Anne says, as if _Jade's_ the one overreacting.

Jade's had enough, she doesn't feel like dealing with Leigh-Anne's ups and downs today. Sometimes she acts like they're the only two people in the world and she's sweet and kind and lovely and other times she's like _this_ and Jade has a headache building from her boyfriend's cologne lingering on her skin, clashing with her perfume.

"I'm going home," Jade says, starting to gather her stuff together.

"Oh, come. on. It was a joke!" Leigh-Anne says, throwing her pen on her notebook and sitting up as well. She looks like she's going to reach out for Jade and pull her back onto the bed but clasps her hands in her lap at the last minute.

"It's not funny," Jade says and stuffs her books into her bag. She gets off the bed and strides across her room, reaching for the door. She stops when Leigh-Anne calls out her name, blinking angrily at the picture of the both of them tacked up on the back of her door. They've both got their arms around each other, at some camp or another from years ago, and Jade wants, in that moment, to rip it down. She turns around to face Leigh-Anne, despite her efforts to keep going, to walk straight out of her room, say goodbye to her mum and bike back to her house.

"Don't be such a drama queen, Jade, I said I'm sorry," Leigh-Anne says, crossing her arms and looking angry like she has every right to be.

Jade just shakes her head wordlessly. She doesn't get mad like this a lot, especially not at Leigh-Anne, and she feels like crying most of all. She just wishes the last ten minutes didn't happen and Leigh-Anne _didn't_ and she could crawl back into her bed and watch Gossip Girl and ignore their homework. She shuts the door behind her because Jade doesn't _slam_ doors and walks downstairs.

~

"Jade, wake up," Leigh-Anne says, her face looming over Jade's.

Jade blinks awake slowly, covering her face with her arm and making a sound of confusion. She's not all that surprised any more. Sometimes Leigh-Anne drops by to and from parties just because she can, or Jade's house is closer than hers and she's drunk and tired and can sneak in without making a noise with her eyes closed. Jade rubs at her eyes, yawning, and looks over Leigh-Anne's shoulder to read the time on her digital alarm clock. It's only 12 and Jade makes another sad little noise when she realises she only managed to get in thirty minutes of sleep before Leigh-Anne climbed into her bed with cold toes and fingertips.

She's in her pyjamas and she's not wearing any make-up.

"I'm sorry," she says, sitting on the side of her bed. She glances down at her fingernails, fussing with them before she glances up quickly to make sure Jade's not still mad enough to kick her off the bed. It's just that Jade hasn't been that abrupt in about _ever_ and Leigh-Anne looks stricken and apologetic about it.

"Go home," Jade says, her voice small and hoarse. She rubs at her eyes some more so she won't have to look at her, her heart lodging itself firmly in her throat.

"I said I'm sorry and you called me a _bitch_ ," Leigh-Anne says, taking that as a sign that Jade's _not_ going to kick her out of her house. She wriggles under the covers, stretching out besides her. She's much closer, they always have to be when they're sharing Jade's single bed.

"You were being one," Jade says, tries to hold onto her righteous anger. It's not disappearing, not exactly, but it's being pushed back further as Leigh-Anne wraps her arm around her waist and hugs her close, falling together into the dip in the middle of her bed.

"I was just nervous," she mumbles into her shoulder, barely moving her lips against the soft material of Jade's shirt.

"I'm sorry I called you a bitch," Jade says, because she _is_.

She doesn't like the word, period, and way too many people use it to make Leigh-Anne feel like shit every day - she doesn't have to be one of them.

"Why were you nervous? It's just me," Jade says, dumbfounded, blinking up at the glowing stars on her ceilings. She always thinks she's going to take them down when she wakes up in the morning, they make her room look childish and stupid, but she never gets around to it. She has to admit she doesn't hate them.

"Because," Leigh-Anne says, her voice low and muffled. "I've never kissed a girl before and I want to try it."

Jade swallows hard, surprise hitting her right in the chest. She tries to focus on the soft glow of the little stars, telling herself not to tense up against Leigh-Anne but to stay relaxed and pliant like she always is when it's just the two of them under the duvet.

"Jade?" she asks, lifting her head to look at her, eyes wide with uncharacteristic anxiousness.

"Yeah?" Jade says back at her in a quieter voice.

"Can I kiss you?" Leigh-Anne whispers, shuffling up so they're face to face in the dark, leaning over Jade.

Jade doesn't have any expectations. Leigh-Anne wants to try something new - she's _always_ trying something new. Jade tries to tell herself it's just an experiment for Leigh-Anne, something weird and forbidden and she's just pushing boundaries like she always is. It doesn't mean anything. Jade knows she'll feel like shit afterwards, probably, seeing Leigh-Anne kiss her boyfriend at college the day after and holding _his_ hand in the hallway but _god_ she wants to, she wants to kiss her so much she can't possibly think it through right at this moment. Her heart's beating fast in anticipation already and the silence feels like it's stretching on forever.

"What about your boyfriend?" Jade asks, her eyes flickering down to the lovely shape of Leigh-Anne's mouth. She curls her hand against the dip of her waist, under her shirt.

"What about him?" she asks carefully, tilting her head.

Jade lifts her head off the pillow a little bit, just enough to barely brush her lips against Leigh-Anne's. Leigh-Anne makes a happy noise, the one she makes whenever she gets Jade to do something she wants, and leans forward to kiss her into the pillow. Her lips are soft and pillowy and have a faintly sweet taste, like the fading hints of flavoured chapstick. The second kiss is still unhurried, Leigh-Anne rolling properly on top of Jade, trying to hold herself up with her elbows. When Jade feels the tip of Leigh-Anne's tongue against her bottom lip, she makes a sound at the back of her throat and takes what she's offering her. She slides her hand out of her shirt, stroking her fingertips against the curve of her back before reaching for the back of her neck, pulling her in closer. She manages to flip them over, landing half on top of Leigh-Anne and presses her into the mattress, licking into her mouth like she's dreamt of for months now.

Leigh-Anne's breath hitches against her lips and Jade can see her through the dark now, her eyelashes fanning against her cheekbones, eyes closed, her hand curled into a fist by her cheek. Jade kisses her again, letting Leigh-Anne pull her firmer on top of her, slotting her leg between Leigh-Anne's bare ones. Leigh-Anne wraps an arm around the back of Jade's neck, arching her body up against Jade's and Jade's so turned on she can't help riding her thigh, her palm sliding against the edge of her shorts, pulling her leg around her waist. Her lips feel all hot and puffy already and it's never been like _this_ before. Jade can't get enough, she doesn't know where to start. She slides her hand up against her ribcage, rising and falling with her breath now, and over the swell over her breast, cupping it in her palm and brushing her thumb over her nipple.

"I thought you said you were a virgin," Leigh-Anne gasps, squirming beneath her and Jade has to rest her face against the side of her neck, trying to steady her breathing because she's not wearing a bra and she's arching into her touch like there's nothing else she wants in the world.

"I said I never had sex with a _guy_ before," Jade says, pressing a kiss to her jaw. She kisses her cheek too, the corner of her mouth and props herself up to get a better look at her.

She wishes the lights were on so she could remember how she looks spread out like this underneath her.


End file.
